back on the market, so to speak

SJ and I have been talking about buying a house for a while, but you know...we live in San Francisco...and you have to either: have a trust fund, have a job that pays $100,000/year (each of you), have a death wish (to move into an "affordable" area), or not care if you live in a 400 sq. foot place in a building in the Tenderloin. None of the above apply to us.

With the market how it is, we've decided that this is the year. 2009 = a house of our own. We've given up on SF, so...it looks like E.Bay here we come!

We drove around a bit last weekend, checking out neighborhoods, because really, every street has its own feel. And, we've been perusing the internets.

It's funny, when we put in the price range ($200-$400,000) we are interested in, BOY do the choices dwindle. It appears that the homes we want are about $300,000 out of our price range. Ha ha. Well, we both believe that if we really look, and have a good realtor helping us look, maybe, just maybe we can work it out.

Here are some things we've been seeing:

There are these condos with yards. $300,000 for 800 square feet, and shared walls? not so sure.

There's this adorable little house on Peralta street. Seems perfect. But, if you look at the street view of the google map...

That's what you see across the street. :-(

There's this cute place in Oakland Hill/Mills area:

But, "up and coming neighborhood" smells like "you don't want to walk around here at night" to me.

There's this really cute house, but where the hell is Gold Links Rd?

Wayyy out there.

Bummer.

There's this cool house in Berkeley.

It even has over 1000 square feet. i wonder if it has a roof?? And of course, it is almost $400,000. ouchie.

And, this looks almost hopeful.

It even has a red door!

Well, the hunt is on. Watch out, e.bay, the lesbians with pitbulls may be coming to a neighborhood near you!

pffft.

I don't like today, despite the fact that it's Friday. This morning I was trying to set up a blog for Animal Care & Control on SF Gate and had all kinds of trouble with the password and email verification. Advice!: Don't try to set up a blog and the email for which that blog is attached AT THE SAME TIME. Turns out I didn't get the verification email because I hadn't finished setting up the email account. Boring story, but it really caused a technical drizzle on my day.

You know else had a bad day? Da Brat.

So, I've been thinking alot about home prices lately. By the way, congrats to my friends William and Dustin who are now home owners in Albuquerque.

So, say we find a home for $600,000 (this is just a fantasy, and hello, the average price for a house in our crappy hood is still $700,000) and have $100,000 to put down. How much would our mortgage be?



Now, $2900 divided by 2 = $1450 a month for each of us.
As if. Who can afford $1450 rent per person?

All I have to say is PFFFFFT. The city is going to be left with the poor and the rich before long, as us 9 to 5ers who don't make bank, and don't want to retire as renters, are going to have to pick up and move towards the hills (or the desert).

sigh. Is the weekend almost here? Maybe wine will help my mood.